Trump's "Truth Social" service and app launched this week. Originally, we kind of thought it would be a part of the global Fediverse designed for full freedom from the big tech oligarchs of social networking, but as the current source code would reveal... Trump's Truth Social is really just another tech dictatorship wanna-be who has closed off the collaborative, free-as-in-freedom, open-source nature of the tools it was built upon.

Trump's "Truth Social" source code is available to download because the code was basically taken from 2 open-source software-freedom projects and a requirement for being allowed to use them is that their modifications be made public. The back end is built on Mastadon; a popular Twitter-like Fediverse server instance platform, while the front end takes from the Soapbox open-source project. Soapbox is normally a front end for the Pleroma Fediverse platform so it's kind of weird seeing it used for Mastadon.

Anyway, the whole reason things like Mastadon. Soapbox, Pleroma, Peertube, Pixelfed, Funkwhale, etc. are being developed is because these people want to create a decentralized network of social networks that isn't controlled by a single dictatorship. That's what the Fediverse is... A diverse federation of different social network platforms that can all connect to each other no matter if you're using someone else's server/platform/instance or your own.

If you don't already know how this works, imagine if you could follow and comment on tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos, and Instagram photos from one single account while also following accounts on all different platforms. That's basically what the Fediverse is like except Twitter is Mastadon, Facebook is Friendica, YouTube is Peertube, Instagram is Pixelfed, etc.  It's a collective of collaborative development towards a more "for the people, by the people" social network that embraces freedom of speech and diversity.

Trump's "Truth Social" removes all of that freedom.

Trump's version of the Mastadon/Soapbox platform removes the federation features so that its users will just be slaves within a different walled garden. Instead of being subjected to Twitter's political discrimination, you'll be subjected to Trump's political discrimination. This should be obvious because all other Fediverse instances will be blocked from Trump's instance. That's discrimination right there off the bat!

The website says "Truth Social is America's "Big Tent" social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology." Maybe free, open, honest conversations will happen there, but the platform itself certainly isn't open to global conversation as long as it doesn't federate with other instances.

If you actually want freedom from big tech, freedom from political discrimination, and open global conversations, setup your own Fediverse instance and make your own rules... join the true tech world of freedom and independence.

For more info about how to join the Fediverse or make your own Fediverse instance, see: Curious about Trump's "Truth" social network? Make your own instead